2015 edition of Sleepwalkers International Short Film Festival Announces Competition Films

The Sleepwalkers International Short Film Festival has today announced the films that will play across its four competitions. The Tallinn based festival runs from 17th-21st November and its screenings will occur mainly at the prestigious Baltic Film and Media School. Sleepwalkers is a sub-festival of the Black Nights Film Festival. The festival will screen over 150 films from 39 different countries as part of its entire programme and will currently play host to 37 Baltic Premieres, four European Premieres, 11 International Premieres and five World Premieres.

The festival’s International Competition showcases some of the very best films from across the world – some have already received plaudits on the festival circuit while others will be discovered for the first time. It includes Blood Below The Skin (Dir. Jennifer Reeder, USA, 2015, Fiction), winner of numerous awards this year including Best International Short at Encounters and Over (Dir. Jorn Threlfall, UK, 2015), winner of the Grand Prix at Palm Springs and Uppsala Short Film Festival. The competition will also play host to Prison Door, an Estonian/Irish co-production directed by Kevin McCann who is currently in Estonia working on a feature about the Irish Uprising. T

The Sleepwalkers Student Competition highlights films from a diverse range of film schools and includes Everything Will Be OK (Dir. Patrick Vollrath, Austria/Germany, 2015), a winner of a Bronze in the 2015 Student Oscar. Vollrath’s professor is Michael Haneke and The Baby (Dir. Ali Asgari, Italy/Iran, 2014), a former award nominee at the Venice Film Festival.

The Sleepwalkers Baltic Sea Competition celebrates film from Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Russia, Denmark and Norway, this year’s selection includes the beautiful Object (Dir. Paulina Skibinska, Poland, 2015 ) a documentary awarded a prize at this year’s Sundance . We’ll also show the internet sensation Kung Fury (Dir.David Sandberg, Sweden, 2015), premiered at Director’s Fortnight in Cannes. A homage to 80s cop films it’s one of the most fun short films of the year.

The Sleepwalkers National Competition is a showcase of the best films from Estonia, this section includes moving documentaries, considered experimentalism and chilling horror. The section will include a screening of To Light (Dir. Nora Särak, Estonia, 2015) a beautiful documentary that has always won many plaudits on the festival circuit.

The jury for the Baltic Sea and National Competitions will be Carmen Gray (Journalist, UK), Emilie Toomela (Journalist, Estonia), Jukka-Pekka Laakso (Director Tampere Film Festival, Finland)

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